The present disclosure relates to image forming apparatuses and particularly relates to a technique for putting a particular sheet feed cassette into an exclusive use state.
In an image forming apparatus including a plurality of sheet feed cassettes, each sheet feed cassette can contain a different type of paper sheet. Each user can form an image on a desired type of paper sheet by, upon entry of an image formation job, selecting from the plurality of sheet feed cassettes one to be used for the image formation job. However, in a general image forming apparatus, all of sheet feed cassettes included therein can be used by anyone at will and, therefore, particular paper sheets, for example, expensive exclusive paper sheets, contained in a certain sheet feed cassette and owned by a user may be used by other users.
As a solution to the above, there is known a technique in which in using a particular one of a plurality of sheet feed cassettes, a password is required to be entered and, if the entered password is not valid, the use of the particular sheet feed cassette is not permitted. In this technique, the user can put the particular sheet feed cassette into an exclusive use state and prevent particular paper sheets contained in the particular sheet feed cassette from being used by other users.
There is disclosed another technique in which when a sheet feed cassette put in an exclusive use state has not been used for a predetermined period of time or longer, the exclusive use state is canceled. Since in this technique the exclusive use state of the sheet feed cassette can be canceled when the image forming apparatus has not been used for a long time, the number of usable sheet feed cassettes can be increased.